


Coën, Lambert or apple pies ?

by Ledgea



Series: The witchers' grapevine [7]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bets & Wagers, Cat School (The Witcher), Crack Treated Seriously, Humor, M/M, Stupidity, The Cats' stupid ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26431810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ledgea/pseuds/Ledgea
Summary: “Better question,” Mal drawls at the fighters when team Lambert has all of team Coën pinned and struggling on the ground, “What or who does Aiden prefer between Coën, Lambert and apple pies ?”The Cats have a stupid idea, poor Aiden and Lambert suffer and Coën gets to be badass.
Relationships: Aiden/Coën/Lambert (The Witcher)
Series: The witchers' grapevine [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794697
Comments: 15
Kudos: 81





	Coën, Lambert or apple pies ?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey !
> 
> I got a new one-shot about Aiden, Coën and Lambert and the trouble the Caravan can bring with them !  
> As always my Cats are stupid.  
> I hope you like it !
> 
> See you soon !

“You know, I wonder who Aiden likes better between Coën and Lambert,” Wyff ponders one evening, “I mean, he has to have a favorite, right ?”

“Probably Lambert,” Vanni answers.

“Nah, Coën's more likeable,” Pierre contradicts him.

A heated discussion erupts around the Cats' campfire and the witchers try to list all the reasons they can think of about why Aiden would prefer one of his husbands over the other. They quickly become loud, a few animals leave their camp's vicinity at a run and the Cats use their debate as a reason to start a brawl.

Mal watches over the chaos from his place on a log and kicks his brothers in the face when they come close and try to drag him into their madness. It's not that he's opposed to a good brawl, he quite likes it in the right circumstances, but today had been his laundry day and he doesn't want to have to wash another outfit on the next day again.

He finally decides to intervene when a few stray daggers make an appearance into the brawl. He doesn't want to end up nursing a teary witcher back to health during the night, he deserves a good night's sleep from time to time too.

“Better question,” Mal drawls at the fighters when team Lambert has all of team Coën pinned and struggling on the ground, “What or who does Aiden prefer between Coën, Lambert _and_ apple pies ?”

“Apple pies !”, Del yells from his place under Jayn.

The cacophony starts up again after that, until Prethr, who is dozing in his cart, comes out of it with a walking stick, that he doesn't need but keeps around because he likes to appear unthreatening, and starts to beat up the fighters with it.

“You damn noisy pricks,” their elder mutters and wallops everyone who happens to be in his vicinity, “I'm trying to enjoy my nap here, so shut the fuck up !”

Mal gets a wallop too and snarls at Prethr because he sure as hell didn't deserve it. The old witcher ignores him and turns his back on them when he's satisfied to go back to his cart. It's the most animated Mal has seen him in months and he's sure that he'll go back to mostly hibernating in a few minutes.

“Shut up !”, Prethr screams again when the noise starts anew after his departure, “If you're so desperate to know, devise an experiment to solve your damn conundrum and in the meantime let me fucking _sleep_ !”

When Mal sees his brothers' interested and eager faces, he knows that they're doomed and that everything will end in tears and blood, or in the best case in shit and bruises. He doesn't like their odds but it doesn't stop him from encouraging his family's plotting. At the very least they'll have fun.

* * *

When Lambert wakes up, he has a pounding headache and he keeps his eyes closed for a moment trying to will it away out of sheer stubborness. It doesn't really work so he opens his eyes and tries to crawl backwards when all he can see is the blue of a lake's smooth waters beneath him.

Unfortunately he's prevented from going back by two strong hands on his shoulderblades that keep him pinned in place with his head hanging over the water. Lambert growls. He tries to push himself up but his arms are shackled behind his back and there's a gag in his mouth preventing him from cursing and threatening the person holding him. He still kicks out with his free legs and is happy to hear a groan of pain echo behind him.

“Oh, asshole !”, Zorn's voice says and Lambert twists his head so that he can peer behind him.

And indeed the Cat is the one holding him down. Lambert spots Vanni next to him too and he struggles in his bonds, growls behind his gag and just really wants an explanation about what the actual fuck is going on. Zorn condescendingly ruffles Lambert's hair and the Wolf tries to move away from him.

“Don't worry,” Vanni says and Lambert _worries_ , “We're just conducting a small experiment here. Look, you can see Aiden there on the ground !”

Lambert has to crane his neck uncomfortably to look at the place Vanni's pointing at and he can indeed discern a motionless figure on the ground on the lake shore a little further away. It looks like Aiden and he seems surrounded by who he thinks are Mal and Berwyn.

Lambert struggles again because his husband isn't moving and he's starting to get anxious now. As they're dealing with the Cats, Lambert feels like this setup could be anything from a stupid prank gone too far to a true execution because they just felt like it.

And the worst of it is that Lambert doesn't even know what he did, they did, to incur the Cats' wrath. He looks around some more after Zorn pushes his head back down, doesn't spot Coën anywhere to his _utter_ _relief_ and weirdly can see Pierre and Del holding an apple pie over the water on an another headland on the other side of the lake. Lambert is confused.

His gaze soon ends up on the water again, because it's the easiest thing to look at in his position, and he tries to guess at what the small metallic object he sees through the clear water can be. It probably is some stupid thing a kid threw in there or maybe some coin someone lost.

After a while Vanni comes to stand next to him and Lambert sees him peer down into the water too. He tries to kick him but Zorn puts some pressure on his back again and Lambert abandons his idea with a pained groan. 

“Hey, isn't that the place where you killed Karadin ?”, Vanni asks Zorn and Lambert stays completely still.

“I didn't kill him,” Zorn says evenly, “He drowned. All alone. By himself. Like a grown man. Didn't even need any help in his endeavour.”

Lambert rolls his eyes at that and his stomach ties itself into knots. If the Cats already killed someone here, they can easily do it again at any time.

“Uhu,” Vanni says and Lambert can hear him smirking, “Nothing to do with the fact that he was drugged, tied up and wearing his armor when you pushed... sorry, when he fell in.”

“He drowned on his own,” Zorn persists and Vanni snorts.

Lambert really wants to know what this Karadin did to deserve such a fate. He really hopes that he was an asshole, it would mean that Lambert and Aiden might get out of this unscathed after all. Vanni's snort seems to have upset Zorn who growls at his brother over Lambert's back.

“And what would you have _done_ ?”, Zorn mutters angrily, “Damn coward was leaving to become a slaver. We could have kissed our newly improving reputation goodbye ! Nobody likes a _slaver_!”

“Hey ! I never said I disagreed ! It was just another Memnos case. Not fun to do but useful all the same,” Vanni says and shrugs.

Lambert groans behind his gag and closes his eyes again, he's pretty sure that he doesn't deserve the same fate as a slaver. He concentrates on his breathing, feels the ground under him up to his chest and the wind slowly caressing his face over the water. 

He feels Zorn let the pressure up on his back as he relaxes and suddenly bucks up, turns over onto his back and kicks Zorn in the crotch. The Cat goes down, Lambert sits up and Vanni has to grab him because he got a bit too much animated during the struggle and his ass ended up landing on empty air. To his horror, he almost falls down into the water.

“Now, will you behave ?”, Vanni asks him with a smirk and lets go of him before catching him swiftly again.

Lambert feels himself slip backwards, closes his eyes and nods. He's almost sure that he would drown too if he were to fall into the water wearing his armour. He soon ends up back on his stomach with his head over the water again and Zorn sitting on his back and bound hands. It's a rather uncomfortable position.

“Look, it's starting !”, Vanni says and Lambert follows the finger he's pointing towards the side of the lake where Aiden is being held.

“Fuck !”, Zorn swears and yells towards Mal and Berwyn, “That's cheating ! Coën's not here !”

Lambert decides to ignore the fact that Coën is supposed to be here, he's not and that is enough for him for now, and concentrates on the Aiden shaped form who is slowly waking up.

From what he can see, Aiden's hands are shackled in front of him and he's struggling to get up to his feet. When he's finally standing, Mal lays a hand on his shoulder, speaks to him, takes a hold of his chin and turns it towards Pierre, Del and the apple pie.

And then Aiden snaps. One second he's looking at the pie being held over the water and the next he launches himself viciously at Mal with a cry even Lambert can hear.

“Fuck !”, Zorn exclaims over him.

“Yeah, we didn't anticipate that.”

_That_ is one of Aiden's fits of rage. Lambert cranes his neck to watch his husband throw himself at Mal and Berwyn with no concern for his safety and with only one thought in his mind, to make them pay.

Lambert has seen Aiden lost in an uncontrolled fit of rage twice - when Memnos tried to kill Lambert and when they happened upon a house where a child raper and killer lived - and both occurences haven't been pretty. He doubts this one will be any better and just hopes that Aiden won't trigger Mal and Berwyn's rages too.

“Ouch, there go Mal's balls,” Vanni comments, “and Berwyn's wrist and oh, vicious, Aiden's ankle.”

“Maybe keeping him sedated for two days and then putting him into shackles wasn't such a good idea,” Zorn says.

Lambert growls and groans and starts to wriggle again because his husband is in pain and he just want to try to help him dammit, but the two Cats watching over him don't budge.

“You stay put,” Zorn grumbles back, “You won't be of any help there.”

“Hey ! Are you jealous that an apple pie sent Aiden into a fit of rage instead of you ?”, Vanni asks him.

Lambert tries to share his incredulity at the question the best way he can, that is by struggling and growling and Vanni rolls his eyes at him. Lambert doesn't even understand why the Cat thinks that _that_ is a valid question.

Lambert doesn't like to see Aiden so enraged that he loses sight of his surroundings, and he'd do everything in his power to keep his Cat, and his Griffin, as happy as they can be. He's not jealous, he's fucking angry on Aiden's behalf.

“I would be. I mean it's just an apple pie, right ?,” Vanni continues and then asks Zorn, “Anyway, do you think that we should go help them ?”

“Do you want to go help them ?”

“Not really.”

“Then stop asking stupid questions.”

Zorn wriggles atop Lambert, who grumbles, and gets comfortable. Vanni goes back to the edge of the headland they're standing on to watch the fight. Lambert's gaze is focused on Aiden and he's silently cursing his husband who's fighting with a sprained or maybe broken ankle and doesn't seem in a hurry to stop.

And suddenly Lambert hears a faint whizzing sound, looks up and sees Vanni plummet into the water with a surprised expression on his face and a crossbow bolt in his shoulder. Zorn curses over him, draws his sword, raises it in a hurry and deflects an other crossbow bolt. Lambert groans, rolls backwards because he doesn't want to end up in the water, kicks Zorn behind the knees and watches him stumble as Coën appears.

The Griffin definitely looks good with a lovely snarl on his face. If he were a poet, Lambert might compare him to an avenging angel, but as he is not, he settles for admiring in silence his husband who threatens Zorn until he gives up the key to his shackles and who then kicks him in the chest and sends him down into the water too. If Lambert wasn't in love already, he would be by the end of the altercation.

Coën kneels behind him, cuts his gag away and opens the shackles. Lambert turns back around, gets a hold of the Griffin's face and kisses him fiercely.

“Missed you too,” Coën mumbles against his lips, “Come on, our husband needs us.”

Coën tugs him up to his feet and Lambert peers down into the lake to see what became of Zorn and Vanni. He sees the two Cats a few ways away treading the water with Zorn helping his brother. Lambert flips them off and follows Coën towards the fight taking place on the nearby shore.

They happen onto Horse on their way and Lambert happily greets him. He takes his swords back and has to run to catch up with Coën. They stop under some trees and watch Aiden fight against Mal and Berwyn. Despite being alone and shackled, he's holding up surprisingly well against two opponents. Lambert still doesn't like the way Aiden's face seems to be stuck on a snarl with hard dead eyes, but he still holds Coën back.

“Don't go in yet,” Lambert tells him, “He's still too lost into his own rage to recognize you and he'd only try to hurt you.”

“It's not the first time you've seen him like that,” Coën comments softly.

“No, third time. We need to wait for him to slow down a bit before interrupting. Then we need to talk to him and catch him. Once he sees us, he should calm down on his own. Fuck, he _hates_ being like that. He's going to be a mess.”

Coën squeezes his shoulder in support and leans against him.

“Anything I shouldn't do ?”

“Don't grab him, let him come to you. Use his name too,” Lambert advises, “It means that you know him, that you're supposed to be safe.”

Coën nods and Lambert motions him forward when Aiden finally stops fighting and ends up panting loudly against a tree trunk. The Griffin rushes the two Cats, sends Berwyn to the floor with a well placed blow to the head and tackles Mal. Lambert lets him be and slowly creeps towards Aiden.

“Hey, Aiden,” he whispers in what he hopes is a soothing tone, “It's me, Lambert. Your husband. I'm going to take care of you. You can let the anger go, let everything go. Come on, I'll catch you.”

Aiden growls at him and doesn't seem to understand that it's Lambert talking to him. The Wolf raises his hands, takes a step back and continues to softly whisper reassurances at the Cat. It takes maybe a minute for Aiden to lose his hard angered expression.

Lambert lets out a relieved sigh when he sees his husband shake his head as if getting out of a deep trance. His eyes widen and Lambert creeps closer again until he's standing a few centimeters away from Aiden.

“Lambert ?”, Aiden asks completely lost.

“It's me, Aiden. I'm here.”

“Fuck,” Aiden swears and falls into Lambert's waiting arms.

One of Lambert's hands rests on Aiden's back while the other gently craddles the back of his head and he lets out some small relieved hums against his husband's temple. He feels him start to shake uncontrollably in his arms and strokes Aiden's back gently hoping to soothe him.

“What did I do ?”, Aiden finally asks, “What the fuck did I do ? What happened ? Lambert ?”

Aiden sounds more and more hysterical as he speaks and starts to struggle in his arms so that he can peer around and try to spot the damage he did. Lambert lets him go.

“It's fine. You didn't kill anybody. You attacked Mal and Berwyn and they really _did_ deserve what happened to them. Believe me.”

“I fought them ?”, Aiden asks with a small contemplative frown on his face.

“And they deserved it,” Lambert repeats firmly, “And you didn't kill anybody. The worst you did is maybe geld Mal.”

“Crap. I like Mal's cock,” Aiden whispers and slumps back against Lambert's chest.

Lambert turns around when he hears Coën snort behind them and smiles when he sees the key he's holding. He steers Aiden towards the Griffin and lets him dispose of the shackles. 

“Look at your wrists,” Coën tuts disapprovingly, “Come on, Horse is close, you can ride him and we'll set up camp a little ways away. I got your things and we'll take care of you, Aiden.”

“What are you doing here ?”, Aiden asks still sounding lost.

“Jayn and Wyff started to creepily follow me a few days ago, so I ambushed them and beat the answers I wanted out of them. Apparently they wanted to see if you had a favorite between Lambert, me and apple pies and devised some sort of test for you.”

“Fuckers,” Lambert swears and kicks Berwyn in the ribs when they walk over his motionless – but still breathing – body.

The Cat groans softly and Lambert kicks him again for good measure. 

“Fuck, that's why they... drugged me ? Yeah, definitely remember that, not fun,” Aiden says as Coën helps him walk, “But where do you two come from ? Last I remember, we weren't together.”

“Zorn and Vanni surprised me and knocked me out, probably yesterday,” Lambert mutters, “I woke up tied up and they held me over the water there. You didn't see me before you...”

“Lost it. I lost it,” Aiden whispers miserably.

Lambert hums sadly and Coën clears his throat. 

“I followed Jayn's directions, arrived here, saved our Wolf and kicked some Cats' ass,” Coën says with a smile.

“My hero,” Lambert says drily and Aiden snorts.

“Sorry I wasn't coherent enough to watch you be heroically badass,” Aiden apologizes seriously and makes Coën laugh.

“You're forgiven,” Coën says and scoops Aiden up in his arms.

And as they slowly trudge back towards Horse, they see Zorn and a bleeding Vanni getting out of the lake and the two Cats quickly disappear into the forest when they see Coën smiling at them. Lambert and Aiden smirk when they see them and flip them off too because they clearly deserve it.

They get a still slightly shaking Aiden up on Horse when they reach him, bundle him up in a blanket, fetch Coën's own mount and walk along a river that throws itself into the lake they're gladly leaving behind them.

They keep a careful eye on Aiden as they travel, and Lambert is glad to note that the shaking progressively disappears. They stop after half a day of travel, and when Aiden asks if the Cats might follow them, Coën offers him a satisfied smirk and tells him not to worry.

Lambert had barely seen the Griffin disappear with Mal into the forest during their fight and he wonders what his husband did to the Cat that he is so sure that they won't come after them. He lets the subject drop though, because he trusts Coën, and starts to set the camp up while the Griffin takes care of Aiden's injuries.

When Coën's done, he calls for Lambert, orders him to strip and sit and applies some healing salve over his body too. He takes care of his abraded wrists, massages his tense back and checks his ribs after he sees the ugly bruise blooming over them. Lambert lets him fuss, because it's nice to be pampered once in a while, and lies down next to Aiden, whose hands are the only parts of his body still slightly trembling, when the Griffin's satisfied with his work.

Coën tells them to stay put and prepares a quick supper while Lambert cuddles Aiden and tries to make him forget his previous fit of rage. Aiden inhales his supper at a truly frigthening speed once Coën brings it to them, and Lambert wonders if the Cats even bothered to feed him correctly while he was in their custody. Probably not. Fuckers. They finish their meal with a handful of cherries that they had plucked on their way here and Lambert then helps Coën to spread their bedrolls.

Coën then carries Aiden to their beds, sets him in the middle and silently asks Lambert which side he'd prefer. Lambert sits down at Aiden's front, while Coën takes the back, and the three of them exchange slow passionate kisses, before they fall asleep all entangled together. Lambert's last coherent thought is a prayer for Aiden not to be plagued by nightmares during the night.

* * *

Mal knows that their plan is going to shit as soon as Aiden snaps. His brother doesn't seem to recognize them anymore and attacks them without a care for his or their wellbeing. All for an apple pie, not even one of his husbands, and Mal is a bit disappointed. Admittedly Aiden probably snaps as much because of the threat to his beloved apple pie as because he's still confused and shackled.

And then the damn Wolf and Griffin get involved because his brothers can't do their fucking jobs correctly, and Mal learns that Coën can be a vicious little bastard when he wants to be. Coën breaks Mal's left arm in one blow as soon as they step away from Lambert and Aiden, and the Cat goes down with a pained grunt.

The Griffin then drags him towards the caravan, dumps him unceremoniously under a tree and breaks every wheel of their carts except for the one Prethr is still dozing in. Mal barely resists crying when he thinks about all the time the repairs are going to take them. Coën then collects Aiden's belongings, punches him one last time and orders him to stay away from them until at least the next year.

Mal bares his teeth at the Griffin but nods anyway because he can admit that they fucked up and that they totally deserve what is happening to them. He then watches the Griffin disappear and it takes a few minutes for Zorn to reach him with an injured Vanni. Pierre and Del arrive next carrying a still unconscious Berwyn and the damn apple pie that started everything. Prethr commandeers the pie and eats it right in front of them as they tend to their injuries.

They take a day to recover from the ordeal before they get to work to repair theirs carts. As Mal thought, having to make new wheels is a grueling work and Coën's name gets cursed more than once in the next few days. And finally at the end of the week, Jayn and Wyff come back to them.

They all stare dumbly as the two Cats stumble into their camp. They're missing all of their clothes and armour, except for their smallclothes, and look decidedly a bit sheepish. They still have their swords and medallions though, so that is a good thing. Everyone makes an effort to clothe their brothers who lost their bags too, and they beg for their story around their campfire in the evening.

As it happens Coën got the drop on them, beat some answers out of them, knocked them out when he was done and disappeared with all of their gear. Jayn and Wyff had then had to travel almost naked for a week, had avoided human settlements as a precaution and had lived on what the land had to offer to them. It apparently hadn't been a comfortable experience.

After they get everything sorted, Mal soon decides to forget about their plan and its unfortunate consequences. It works well until they arrive at the brothel to spend their winter there and Seyn greets them with a truly unimpressed frown on his face. Mal winces and pushes Jayn forward, his brother can deal with the whore's ire for whatever he thinks they did.

But Seyn doesn't shout, doesn't curse them, doesn't forbid them to enter, he only watches them with sad disappointed eyes that grate on everyone's nerves. They finally learn over supper, with Seyn unusually refusing to sit on anyone's lap, that Coën and Aiden had visited the brothel a few weeks ago and had brought Jayn's and Wyff's belongings back. An unamused Seyn then informs them that while Aiden had raided the slick stock, Coën had told him a very interesting story.

Mal grimaces and hears his brothers whine and try to sell the whore some weak excuses for their behaviour. Seyn clearly doesn't believe them, chews them out without raising his voice once, which is probably worse than if he were yelling, and informs them that he won't be sharing any of their beds for a month. He then forbids them to sleep with one another too, pretending that their new now free hours could be used to ponder about what they did and why it hadn't been a good idea.

His brothers all complain and whine and try to get on the whore's good side, but Seyn doesn't relent. And the worst is that Mal can't even scold him, because he still takes care of them, feeds them, massages them when they're sore, bathes them if they want and is as touchy as ever, he just doesn't want to have sex with any of them.

Seyn's attitude somewhat placates his brothers, who decide that they can make an effort if that is what the whore wants, and start to apologize for their previous behaviour and swear left and right that they won't ever do it again.

Mal shakes his head at these displays, continues to scowl at the whore and curses him vehemently when he learns that his brothers are really taking his orders seriously. After a week, Mal starts to look for a bed partner and nobody agrees to share his bed because _the damn whore_ said so. So he has to remind himself several times a day that the predicament they find themselves in now is of their own damn fault lest he'd snap and say something the others would later make him regret.

Coën's name still gets cursed left and right for the first month of their stay at the brothel, and Mal starts to plan his revenge. He's planning alone though, because his brothers are now too scared of the Griffin to want to make him pay, and Mal finds a terrified but attentive ear for his grumbling in the mayor of the town who he delights to visit each and every time he needs to get out of the brothel.

Fortunately everything goes back to normal after the first month. Mal still spurns his brothers' advances for the first week, because he's still a bit peeved that they listened to the whore in the first place, and then fucks his eight brothers in eight consecutive nights. And if his schedule often clashes with Seyn's wants, well it's certainly not his fault.

And in the summer, when the Caravan looks for the three lovebirds to apologize to them – Seyn's order, again – Mal rants about it but still follows his brothers' wishes. When they happen upon them, they all agree to spend two days together and on the last night, Mal tries to slip a laxative into Coën's mug.

Unfortunately he's betrayed by his own brothers, has to fight them under Lambert's amused stare while Aiden laughs and Coën the _asshole_ smirks smugly at him. He so wants to punch the Griffin in his fucking face. His brothers don't let him approach him though, and Mal storms out of the camp in a huff and decides to seek out the closest drowners he can find. Hopefully they'll prove distracting enough that he could let go of his pent up frustration.

As he cuts drowners into pieces, he vows to never forget his planned revenge and the dry spell he had to endure for a freaking month because the Griffin just had to be a snitch and couldn't keep his fucking mouth shut. He can be patient and a late revenge will just be sweeter for it. As they say, revenge is a dish best served cold.


End file.
